Chinese kindergartners poisoned over school rivalry

Two chinese girls were killed Thursday after eating poisoned yogurt that had been planted by the owner of a rival kindergarten. The owner confessed to adding rat poison to the yogurt before leaving it on the side of the road along with school notebooks, reports the BBC.

The two kindergartens in the Hebei province were in competition for students, which spurred the poisoning. The kindergarten owner allegedly poisoned the yogurts and enlisted the help of a man to drop them off outside the rival school. The grandmother of the two girls then found the yogurts with their books and brought them home.

This is not an isolated incident, unfortunately. Five years ago, six children died and thousands were made ill after drinking baby milk powder tainted with the industrial chemical melamine. These types of events have led to questions about academic competition being put above the health of the Chinese youth.